


Soup

by GwendolynGrace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Illnesses, Protective Dean Winchester, Sick Character, Weechesters, Young Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-18
Updated: 2007-09-18
Packaged: 2018-10-23 22:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10728411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynGrace/pseuds/GwendolynGrace
Summary: A 12-year-old Dean plays nurse for an 8-year-old Sammy.





	Soup

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written in 2007, before subsequent canon may have joss'd it. It was also flashfic for musesfool, who had the flu at the time.

**1991**

"Dean, I'm tired of soup," Sammy said. Correction: Sammy whined. Sammy was whiny on the best of occasions; when he was sick, they could have hired him out to the fire department as a replacement siren. 

"You might be tired of it, Sammy, but it's the only thing you've been able to keep down for two days, so slurp it up," Dean countered. "Ew. And blow your nose, dude." He reached over for the tissue box and tipped it toward his brother.

Sammy trumpeted noisily. He dropped the used tissue into the wastebasket, which Dean had helpfully posted right beside the bed. Dean, meanwhile, perched on the bed by Sammy's tucked-in legs. When Sammy sat up, Dean set down the stolen room service tray across his brother's lap. "Don't spill it; I can't call the desk for new sheets twice in one day."

"Sorry," Sammy said again.

"No big deal," Dean replied, in a way that said when his little brother felt better, he was planning to extract a lot of mileage out of the incident. Luckily (for Dean), he had moved Sammy to the bed closest to the bathroom and commandeered Dad's bed for himself. So it wasn't hard to throw the kid in the tub after he'd tossed his cookies, plus there was still one dry bed to put him back in afterward. Dean had balled up the comforter and wet sheets in a garbage bag so he could wait until morning to call for fresh linens, but he didn't want to call the maid again - the old, "Dad's gone out for coffee" excuse didn't work so well at 2:00 PM.

"Can we watch Mario?" Sammy was asking, sipping star-shaped noodles from his mug.

Dean shrugged. "It's all soaps until four, Sammy. How about getting some sleep after you finish?"

Sammy sighed. How an eight-year-old kid could huff and puff fit to blow down the little pigs' house, Dean could never figure out. But Sammy certainly managed it. "I'm not tired, Dean. I'm bored." He flopped his legs from side to side under the covers. "Did Ms. Turner have any more homework for me?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "No. And I'm not having you clean the guns - last time you sneezed and got snot all over the trigger."

They sat in silence broken only by Sammy's determined slurp. He held out the mug after a moment, and Dean took it and the tray away wordlessly. Sammy slumped against his pillows. "Wanna play matchbox wars?"

Dean grinned. "Sure." He went to their duffel and pulled out the supplies: a deck of cards, a few intrepid green army guys, and their four matchbox cars. He handed the toys to Sammy, who held them up while Dean snapped the comforter up from the foot of the bed. He tossed the end into the air and let it float down over Sammy's legs. Air pockets formed and made the bed into its own terrain: hills, valleys, and where Sammy's knees poked up, a ridged mountain range.

"We need a river," Sammy recommended. Dean rummaged through their bags and found an old shoelace. He laid it out on a diagonal starting at Sammy's toes and extending toward the other pillows, and then the two of them spent a cantankerous five minutes curving the lace to form the shape of the waterway. Dean then picked up his two matchboxes - he always used the Corvette and the General Lee - and half of the army men. Sammy accordingly took up his share of the plastic soldiers and his matchboxes: a T-bird convertible and a VW bug painted to look like Herbie. (Dean kept telling Sammy he should trade it for something even vaguely cool, but Sammy had chosen it when he was five, after seeing "The Love Bug" on his birthday. Dean remembered watching the movie all together, cuddled up under blankets with Dad on the sofa in a trailer in West Virginia, while rain pounded outside and a fire crackled in the wood-burning stove, so Dean could sort of understand why Sammy kept hanging on to it. Besides, in matchbox wars, the VW could double as a chopper.)

Dean shuffled and dealt out the deck. As they played, they moved their soldiers (the matchboxes were the tanks, of course) in strategic advances, using rules that only the two of them understood and remembered. As usual, the game devolved while they played, so that after about half an hour, Sammy declared that the range was unstable and moved his legs to cause an "earthquake," after which Dean rattled the comforter to cause a "tsunami" and the armed forces of the respective countries of Sammyland and Deantopia were brought to a cease-fire so they could work together on organizing relief for the hapless civilians.

Sammy collapsed against his pillows. "Is it time for cartoons yet?" he asked.

Dean consulted the hotel room alarm clock. "Still got about an hour. Let's see if there's anything on cable." He swept the cards and toys off the bed and dumped them into the duffel, grabbed the remote from the desk, and flicked the TV on. As he flipped around, he came to sit on the bed beside Sam, leaning on the headboard.

"M'just gonna lie down a bit," Sammy muttered. "Until you find something to watch," he added, as if to tell Dean that it had nothing to do with being sick.

"Okay, Sammy," Dean said with a suppressed grin. He left off surfing to help Sammy settle in, tucking the comforter around him, smoothing out its ruined landscapes and petting it into place to keep the warmth in. 

"Dean?" Sammy's voice came out muffled, as only the very top of his hair showed.

"Yeah?"

Sammy's reply was so long in coming, Dean thought he had fallen asleep. But then, in a plaintive voice, he heard his little brother say: "Maybe later you could make me a little more soup?"


End file.
